Contents lists
T. E. Lawrence to Colonel A. P. Wavell
9.2.28
Dear Wavell
I am reading your book, and liking it very much. My first vanity, when I got it, was to look up myself in the index! I apologise for this: but so many people have either overdone or underdone the Arab business that it's a real pleasure to see a fair statement of the case; so I take back my apology. You have thrown several of your rare flowers at my person: this wasn't necessary, you know! The author has only too good an opinion, already, of his rotten prose. I haven't, of course, yet got very far. Indeed I've only turned it over and read the tit-bits: they have left me with a sharp appetite for it all: and as leisure serves me I'm going right through, checking each move with the map. I fancy there will be more lessons in the Palestine Campaigns than in the French ones. I hope you have kept the enemy always in the picture. War-books so often leave them out: and neither Liman nor Kress is very palatable. No, India is not good. We are seven miles from Karachi. I have passed a lot of self-denying ordinances, one of which keeps me within camp-bounds, another forbids me the canteen, a third prevents my ever sitting down on another bed than my own. Imagine me as a plaster saint: but even that wasn't enough. [44 words omitted] Salmond, knowing that, stepped in and saved me. So all is well, and my conduct sheet still white. If I'm lucky it will be England in 1930. The only decent thing about India is the climate here: never cold enough for an overcoat, or hot enough for a sun-helmet. A marvellous relief after Arabia and Egypt.
I'm glad you have the mechanical side to play with. It will completely change the face of future tactics, I think and hope. The abolition of the rifle, shall we say? A very good riddance. Give my regards to Barty and Clayton, if you meet them some while.
That fat-head [name omitted] is going to write a book against Gertrude and me. Cat and puppy, it was. Will he call us soul-affinities! Fat-head again to him.
Very many thanks indeed for the book. I'll try & write you again, when I've done it justice, so far as reading-time goes.
T.E. Shaw
Notes:
A. P. Wavell, The Palestine Campaigns (London, Constable, 1928)
Liman - Liman von Sanders
Kress - Kress von Kressenstein
'Barty' - General Barthomomew
Clayton - General Clayton
| Source: | DG 565-6 |
| Checked: | dn/ |
| Last revised: | 6 January 2006 |
T. E. Lawrence chronology
1888 16 August: born at Tremadoc, Wales
1896-1907: City of Oxford High School for Boys
1907-9: Jesus College, Oxford, B.A., 1st Class Hons, 1909
1910-14: Magdalen College, Oxford (Senior Demy), while working at the British Museum's excavations at Carchemish
1915-16: Military Intelligence Dept, Cairo
1916-18: Liaison Officer with the Arab Revolt
1919: Attended the Paris Peace Conference
1919-22: wrote Seven Pillars of Wisdom
1921-2: Adviser on Arab Affairs to Winston Churchill at the Colonial Office
1922 August: Enlisted in the Ranks of the RAF
1923 January: discharged from the RAF
1923 March: enlisted in the Tank Corps
1923: translated a French novel, The Forest Giant
1924-6: prepared the subscribers' abridgement of Seven Pillars of Wisdom
1927-8: stationed at Karachi, then Miranshah
1927 March: Revolt in the Desert, an abridgement of Seven Pillars, published
1928: completed The Mint, began translating Homer's Odyssey
1929-33: stationed at Plymouth
1931: started working on RAF boats
1932: his translation of the Odyssey published
1933-5: attached to MAEE, Felixstowe
1935 February: retired from the RAF
1935 19 May: died from injuries received in a motor-cycle crash on 13 May
1935 21 May: buried at Moreton, Dorset